Gojirathon 4: San daikaijû: Chikyû saidai no kessen (1964)

G: minus 34 days

Gojirathon is me just writing up some thoughts about the movies I see while I conduct my little marathon of Godzilla-movies in anticipation of the new Hollywood retooling. Why Gojirathon and not Godzillathon? Well, because Rolfe already did his Godzillathon as part of his Monster Madness, and I don’t want to steal his work. I’ll be using the terms, G, Big G, Godzilla and Gojira somewhat interchangedly… since I can be a bit lazy at times, when it comes to these things.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964)

It almost seems like I need to start all of these with a small addendum to the last entry. Though, as I watch Daicon III on my home-cinema. I seem kind of distracted… and depressed. They did all that on old crappy 8mm in their spair time? Damn. I need to get my ass off and do some animation!

Anyways. Getting back to the movie at hand. two years after the last one, the franchise continues, with not only one monster (as the title suggests), No, not two either. Not three… but FOUR. Yes four Kaiju of considerable note make their appearances in this one. And Ghidorah? Actually he’s the last one to appear despite the english title of the film.

No, before that we have a subplot among the humans. A policeman is tasked with being the bodyguard of a foreign princess (who just happen to both speak and look remarkably japanese, regardless how royally european they try to make them look) who is traveling incognito in japan. But during a meteor-shower she gains psychic powers and dumps her friends in an exploding inferno as the plane is assassinated. She then turns up seemingly amnesiacic(spelling?) and not only claims to know the locations of future disasters, but also that she comes from Jupiter to warn the earthlings. I actually thought that the rest of humanity would be ready to accept her story… since…

It is also established that not only is there an island where the natives worship a giant larvae called Mothra. But also that noone seems freaked out by the thought of a couple of ten-inch twin girls who always talk in unison (unless singing, of course) that appears on television and other places. A princess of jupiter is downright plausible in a universe like that, one would imagine. I mean. It’s almost like I missed out on a whole movie where these things where established between this and the King Kong flick…. oh.. uhm…. Nevermind… I always forget that I’m concentrating on Gojira-flicks that actually contain Gojira. Toho did do other monster films too.

But then, in the plot Rodan shows up from a volcano and… everyone sort of knows what he is already. It’s almost like… Aw Gaddammit! .

Ok, so… Gojira shows up to barbeque some boats and immiately picks a fight with Rodan and that ensues for a bit while King Ghidorah (the guy from the title) enters after being born from a growing meteor. Now, if anything I really enjoyed the lightning-breath of Ghidorah. Allthough the heads did get a bit too floppy in their movements at times. And according to my research (imdb-search) he’s the new addition to the Toho Monster Roster.

The films probably most bizarre sequence then occurs as Mothra tries to convince the bickering Godzilla and Rodan to join forces in a fight against Ghidorah. She does this by first grabbing their attention by spraying them with mile-wide silk and then… talking to them. The conversation is relayed to us humans (and our analogues on the mountainside) who are witnessing this debate from afar. Mosura finally gives up and tries some reverse-psychology. Going “Fine, Don’t save the earth that you yourselves are dependent on”. And before you can say “Don’t you dare tell me what not to do!!!”, the tag-team vs Ghidora battle is on.

If I can fault this movie on one thing. It is that when the final fight actually did come, it kind of was underwhelming as they only had 20 minutes left of screentime (and of that, only 10 pages of screenplay) to tie up all of the loose ends. It was decent overall. And the silliness has started to sit in. And we could even announce that this is the first time Godzilla actually worked his fighting for the benefit of humanity. See, military. This is what happens when you stop considering to waste your ammo on the obligatory army-vs-kaiju-scenes!

And for the next one I continue with the aliens, I think. Be seeing you next time, in Invasion of Astro-Monster !